The harpoon pushes people towards a buy. Often buyers arrive “from the cold.” They don’t know who you are; they don’t know what you do; and you get only one shot at persuading them to buy. If you miss your shot, the fish swims away.

In contrast, the net pulls people slowly closer to you. By sharing free content on a blog or in an email series, potential buyers get to know and trust you; and once you’ve built your credibility you offer them your product or service.

[T]he fish are a lot easier to catch when you’ve been keeping them happy in your content net. ~ Sonia Simone

The net offers a softer approach to selling, but you still need to write sales copy nudging people to buy.

They’re taught core subjects at school. History and biology. English and physics. But they don’t get a study skills course. Nobody teaches them how to digest difficult material, how to avoid procrastination, how to take ownership of their learning.

Your teen can learn how to learn.

They can learn how to start schoolwork on their own, grasp difficult concepts, and ultimately be ready to take on college.

Once readers feel you understand their problems and struggles, they’re hooked—they want to find how you can help take away their pain.

Dan Kennedy refers to this as the PAS copywriting formula: Problem – Agitate – Solution. You show readers you understand their problem; then you agitate by commiserating with their pain and frustrations, and lastly you offer them your solution to getting rid of the pain.

“When you understand that people are more likely to act to avoid pain than to get gain, you’ll understand how powerful this first formula is. (…) It may be the most reliable sales formula ever invented.” ~ Dan Kennedy

Are your customers afraid of losing?

You’ve hooked your readers—they want to listen to your advice. Now it’s time to pitch your offer and describe both features and benefits.

When discussing the benefits of your offer, you can use two approaches:

Quickbooks takes the opposite approach and appeals to the fear of missing out:

Never miss a sale with mobile credit card processing

Want to look at another example?

In the sales copy for their conference, ConversionXL promotes the positive appeal of boosting your profits by learning how to optimize:

This event will make you money. It’s like conversion optimization in person. Our hand-picked speakers will teach you optimization processes that you can model, and boost profits on any website you work on.

In contrast, Kissmetrics appeals to the fear of missing out when promoting their software:

Fix Every Leak in Your Business: There are areas throughout your website where visitors don’t complete the step you want them to take. This drop-off means fewer customers and less revenue. Quickly identify what’s draining to your growth.

But you don’t need to choose between the two options. You can mix them. Websynthesis appeals to our desire to have a website that loads fast:

Superior uptime and page load speed: When sites move to Synthesis and our efficient NGINX architecture, they can sustain twice the traffic and consume about 1/8th of the resources.

But they also appeal to our fear of missing out:

What if some social media big shot tweets your content, or a major website links to you, and your site goes down in flames. You’ll look like an amateur, to the extent anyone can see you at all (which is not at all).

The power of regret

You’ve empathized with your readers, and you’ve shown them how you can fulfill their desires and get rid of their pain.

But how do you persuade them to actually buy?

The most critical time to persuade is when you’re asking for action. Always feature deadlines to discourage response-killing inertia. ~ Drew Eric Whitman

Regret is a powerful emotion. We fear missing out. What if we don’t take up this offer, will we regret it next month because we need to pay more? What if we don’t buy today, and the limited edition is gone, will we regret it?

When I launched my guide for writing About pages, I sold a lot of copies on the launch day because people were looking forward to the guide’s launch and excited to buy. However, on the last day of the launch promotion I sold even more because even more people were afraid of missing out.

Creating scarcity for your product fuels a fear of missing out. I don’t advocate an artificial kind of scarcity. As an ethical marketer, you give people the right information to make up their mind, and then gently nudge them to take action.

Email marketers Appsumo are masters at using scarcity, for instance, by indicating time limits for their offers:

24 hours left to save $450 on this popular WordPress lifetime deal

Or they create a sense of exclusivity by limiting the number of seats or products available:

Less than 50 spots left to get $100 off Monthly1k

A similar approach can be used in services, too. Eric Drew Whitman presents this example in his book Ca$hvertising:

Steve is finally available to accept three more clients. But hurry! Because once his roster is full is services won’t be available for another three years.

Don’t exaggerate how scarce your services are because you may regret it later. Once you’ve told people you won’t take on new clients for a year or two, you can’t offer them your services at a discount in a few months’ time. It’s the same with those “last chances to get a discount.” A last chance should be a last chance. Otherwise you lose your credibility fast.

How to sell without feeling icky

Writing good sales copy starts with sneaking into your customers’ minds to understand their pain, their struggles, their frustrations, their unfulfilled desires, their dreams.

Reader Interactions

Comments

This is such great advice. I think feeling icky about selling is one of the biggest roadblocks there is. It’s an area I struggle finding the balance…not wanting to be ‘salesy’, giving value, making a living at it, and doing it all with integrity.

Yes, I agree. When I worked as marketer for a company, I found it quite easy to put a good sales presentation together. But when I had to start selling my own services, it felt at once really hard, and it took me a while to get over that feeling of icky-ness.

What I remind myself of is that my readers are grown up and capable decision-makers. So, I’m simply offering them the information required to help them decide whether my courses and books are right for them or not.

Hi, Henneke, I think the most important part of your proposition is the ‘icky’ factor. People who try to sell with total disregard to their degree of ickiness, are the ones with no concept of empathy. It’s getting easier to spot the difference between people who use emotional triggers such as scarcity, simply for the sake of making a sale, and those who encourage you to act now because there is a genuine lack of supply. My icky radar is getting sharper by the day.

You introduced a new concept of understanding and identifying the right tools to utilize, so that our customers (kingpin of our business) are getting what they want with our right services based on their requirements.

I agree, Henneke, it’s a fine line between true “scarcity” and a selling ploy. Someone I followed who had a ton of credibility (and not just for me) crossed over that line. Products and services were always “last chance” deals. Emails increased to the point I heard my inbox scream. After following him for years, I opted out. It takes time to earn trust but only seconds to send it running.

Hi Henneke, Awesome tips! These are great tips to implement. I know they will convert because you show they are proven. And even when I assumed I am a company and read Quickbooks’ line “Never miss a sale with mobile credit card processing” the company (me) feared of really loosing my clients and if I were real, I’d sign up then and there only.

Scarcity really does work. I know, as a buyer, I’ve purchased an item solely on the fact that I didn’t want to miss out. And appealing to people’s fears is a great strategy. I see a lot of copywriters, even ones that I studied before, constantly using that as motivation for prospects to buy.

Great stuff as always, Henneke. Hope you and your family has a relaxed couple of days. Happy Easter.

Yes, as I buyer I’ve also bought just because a deal seemed so good. But quite often ebooks or ecourses were stored on my computer… unread. So, unless I’m absolutely sure I’m going to read a book or do a course within a month, I’ve learned to ignore all promotional messages for digital products 😉

Great post. The biggest lesson I take out of it is “people are more likely to avoid pain than to get gain.” Although I’ve heard and read about this idea before, it especially resonates with me this morning as I try to pull together a product I’m working on. Very timely of you, as usual!

Being able to empathize with your potential customers and see their worldview is the starting point. This takes time, effort and research but once you’ve been in their shows so to speak, all else should follow with ease.

I’ve found that over the years, I don’t see it as research anymore. I learn from all interactions with readers whether it’s a comment on my blog, a question by email, or a discussion in my course forums.

Thanks for this article, Henneke. I have a book coming out in the summer – The Power of Creativity – and can use the advice! I’ve never been comfortable with selling, I like to think of it more as offering – but I’m going to try to incorporate your advice into my thinking.

Hey Henneke – love LOVE the punch line for ‘ethical sales’ – “sneaking into your customers’ minds to understand their pain, their struggles, their frustrations, their unfulfilled desires, their dreams….” – now there’s a cartoon image and a great takeaway tip for my swipe file 🙂 Thank you! I am feeling less icky and more comfortable understanding this as long term relationship – building trust and credibility over time – not a one night stand 🙂 Patience! Enjoy your holiday break. I too will be unplugging and recharging with beach time and kite flying.

One thing I like to do is being on the same level as my readers first before I present them with a solution. In this way they resonate with what I convey before I reveal the fix. This gets them charged up and more open to my offer. If not, then at least they like the content and consider even more about following me.

Scarcity is a great way to pique their interest. It’s based on regret and you can get your audience to reflect on all the great opportunities that they missed, overlooked, or turned down. This approach has worked on me a few times lol.

Hi Henneke. That’s great advice. It’s all about building trust, and it’s easier to trust people who understand your pain. I understand the value of creating scarcity to help sell a product, but like you said, it has to be a real scarcity.

There are so many marketers who use fake scarcity. I remember many years ago there was a blogging program that I was in. Their sales page said that their price was going to go up in 24 hours. It never changed. Six months later the price was still the same and it said the price was going up in 24 hours.

A lot of product launches have a similar routine too. They launch for a week and when the week is up, your chance to get in will be gone. At the end of the week they send out some story about how servers crashed or people begged, so they are extending it for 3 more days or something. It’s so common that I would actually be stunned if I saw an opportunity go away when they said it was.

I don’t like selling my own stuff either! I used to think selling was per definition a little sleazy, but now I see selling as a way to tell people how I can help them. If the problem I sketch is something they struggle with, then my ebook or ecourse can help—but of course it’s always up to them to decide whether they want to or not. In other words, I never try to sell to people who won’t benefit from a product.

I hope you’re enjoying your weekend, Melissa. Thank you for stopping by again.

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